I received a galley of The Lost Story by Meg Shaffer prior to its July release however due to personal reasons was unable to get around to reading it until just recently. This is an interesting Chronicles of Narnia-esc story, with a door to a fantasy world hidden within a large tree in the Red Crow State Forest within West Virginia.

Emilie Wendell sequesters the help of Jeremy Cox a famous missing persons investigator and Ralph(Rafe) Howell to search the Red Crow State Forest for the remains of her sister who was kidnapped 20 years prior. Jeremy and Rafe themselves went missing around age 15 in Red Crow State Forest 5 years after Emilie’s sister, and were found after six months in the same forest as healthy and fit (if not more so) than when they went missing.

It’s a compelling story, and overall well written, though there were a few things that bothered me. First, after every chapter or two there would be a brief chapter maybe a paragraph in length called “Storyteller Corner” where the author would speak directly to the reader about things that just happened or were about to happen. At first I found Storyteller Corner strange and unwelcome breaking my immersion to provide commentary I felt was unnecessary, I quickly grew used to it and didn’t mind it much. As the story progressed and things got interesting I found myself irritated as storyteller corner continued popping up with exposition I didn’t want or need when I just wanted to continue on with the story.

The second issue I had (some decent spoilers here so if you don’t want those skip to the next paragraph), it turns out the entire story was written and forgotten about by Emilie’s sister Shannon before she went missing. Shannon’s story didn’t come to life plucking her out of her world because she was special or some fey creature took an interest and decided to make her fantasies a reality, but because of a certain apparently magical pencil she had written it with. It’s just weird and in my opinion doesn’t read very well.

Overall it’s not a bad book, an easy read with a sort of redeeming action taken by the antagonist near the end. If you enjoy expeditions into other worlds, things like The Chronicles of Narnia, Peter Pan, etcetera, you will likely enjoy this book or at least a chunk of it.